Tuesday, 30 May 2017

I first became aware of Nigel Cole when I saw Saving Grace (2000). My wife, who has never touched dope in her life, loves that movie. I don't know why. During my misspent youth, I encountered more than my share of green cigarettes, though I —naturally—have never inhaled.

Next up was Calendar Girls (2003), another oddly appealing movie, which has lingered on our Favourites list ever since. The hard-working director followed that with a series of films, including Made in Dagenham (2010).

Monday, 29 May 2017

He broke into Hollywood in the late 1990s, selling a series of spec scripts that have so far gone unproduced, including Mobile in 1997, and Solace and Beached in 1998. These landed him an early rewrite assignment for a comedy called Domestic Partners, which has also gone unproduced.

Saturday, 27 May 2017

Chico was the eldest of the Marx Brothers, but the youngest of them when he died (age 74) in 1961. Chico was a talented pianist. He originally started playing with only his right hand and fake playing with his left. As a young boy, he gained jobs playing piano to earn money for the Marx family. Sometimes he worked playing in two places at the same time. He would acquire the first job with his piano-playing skills, work for a few nights, and then substitute Harpo on one of the jobs. (During their boyhood, Chico and Harpo looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for each other.)

Groucho Marxstated that his brother got the name Chico because he was a "Chicken-chaser" (early slang for chasing women).He also said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played. Instead, before performances he soaked his fingers in hot water. He was known for 'shooting' the keys of the piano. He played passages with his thumb up and index finger straight, like a gun, as part of the act. For a while in the 1930s and 1940s, Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Tormé began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra.

Here he plays "All I Do Is Think Of You" in A Night at the Opera (1935), for a group of delighted children.

[Watch how the Hollywood power game was being played, even by children, back in 1935. At the start of this piece, a small boy takes his place next to the piano. A much larger kid makes his way over, then muscles in, displacing the little kid.]

While talking about The Lodger (1927), Truffaut raises the question of "personal appearances" and asks Hitchcock why he made them. Hitchcock answers:

"It was strictly utilitarian; we had to fill the screen. Later on it became a superstition and eventually a gag. But by now it's a rather troublesome gag, and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes so as to let the people look at the rest of the movie with no further distraction."

My favourite cameo, from North by Northwest. Alfred Hitchcock tries to catch a buson Madison Avenue between 44th Street and 45th Street. Long before he ever went to the USA, Hitchcock's hobby was the study of Manhattan. He'd memorised every train timetable, as well as the location of all the major stores.

There are numerous lists of those personal appearances around. Some have him appearing in 36 films, most have 37, some (Wikipedia) have 40. The disputed films include Number 17, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Sabotage and Rebecca. (Why people argue over the Rebecca entry mystifies me, as the Hitchcock|Truffaut book contains a large photo of the moment. The earlier films have the problem of blurry B&W.) Here's my list:

The Lodger (1927) -
At a desk in a newsroom and later in the crowd watching an arrest.

Thursday, 25 May 2017

In 1996, a stray bunch of Australians (plus a Scotsman and a Canadian) came together to make a movie. The movie is called Cosi, and it is the most underrated film Australia ever produced (after Hercules Returns).

A young amateur theater director is offered a job with a Government program for the rehabilitation of the mentally ill. His project is hijacked by a patient who wants to stage Cosi Fan Tutte by Mozart.

Saturday, 13 May 2017

I was waiting at a bus stop recently when I noticed a car with a Christmas Tree air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror, which put me in mind of Repo Man (1984) and the whole business of the Little Trees homage shots that subsequently made their way into movies and TV.

Repo Man features pine tree-shaped air fresheners in almost every vehicle in the movie, including the police motorcycle. People will tell you that the manufacturer, Little Trees, funded the movie, but that's not true. No money changed hands, but a number of air fresheners did. It is part of the legend that every Little Tree used in the movie was scent-free, because no one could handle the smell of them.

Repo Man is a cult movie, little known in the mainstream, but beloved by aficionados, who include many young Hollywood directors. I don't know exactly when the trend started, but it became a thing to include a Christmas Tree air freshener somewhere in your movie. Here are some examples.